Laboratory transport systems such as gripper or conveyor systems are used in medical laboratories to transport sample tubes from one processing station to another processing station. Such sample tubes may comprise laboratory samples including, but not limited to, a sample fluid such as blood, and the sample fluid can be processed for chemical, biological or physical examination.
Individual tubes in the known systems are transported by means of laboratory product transport elements which are moved on a transport system. It may be desirable to move the laboratory product transport elements from an input transport lane to an output transport lane. However, during the transfer of a transport element from an input lane to an output lane, the transport element may be subject to vibrations, which may lead to perturbation of the transported sample materials. This is often detrimental for subsequent processing steps of the sample materials such as the aliquotation of a centrifuged blood sample may no longer be possible if the liquid and solid material layers, established by centrifugation, are disrupted. For example, in a conveyor based transportation systems, a transport element can be moved from a first lane to a second lane using a stop flipper system.
An exemplary stop flipper system 100 is illustrated in FIG. 1. The laboratory product transport elements 102 and 104 traveling on a first lane 108 need to be transported to a second lane 106. The illustrated stop flipper system 100 employs a flipper arm 112 that guides the laboratory product transport element 104 through an opening 116 provided between the two lanes 106 and 108. When a portion of the laboratory product transport element 104 is on the flipper arm 112, flipper arm 112 moves up toward the second lane 106. The movement of the flipper arm 112 moves the laboratory product transport element 104 toward the second lane 106 through the opening 116. A stopper arm 110 may be provided to stop any subsequent laboratory product transport elements, such as laboratory product transport element 102, from moving forward on the first lane 108. When the flipper arm 112 is in a neutral position, i.e. between the two lanes 106 and 108, the laboratory product transport elements travel forward on the first lane 108.
The stop flipper design discussed above results in singulation issues where a plurality of laboratory product transport elements pass before a laboratory product transport element can be picked and transferred from the first lane to the second lane. As such, it is ineffective to use the stop flipper design for systems where specific (e.g., predetermined) laboratory product transport elements should be transferred between transport lanes. In addition, the stop flipper design yields a maximum throughput of about 2400 tubes per hour (“TPH”). This throughput is considered to be low for a system where the goal is to achieve a throughput of about 2800 TPH. Moreover, in the stop flipper system 100 illustrated in FIG. 1, the second lane 106 moves in a direction opposite to the moving direction of the first lane 108. Thus, there is a need to reliably move the laboratory product transport elements between two same direction lanes of a transport system.
Additional drawbacks of some conventional systems result in the laboratory product transport elements dipping down between the lanes and, thus, causing motion errors due to the flipper arm only pushing at a tangential point to the laboratory product transport element.
Furthermore, conventional systems are not suited to handle orientation-specific laboratory product (i.e. sample) transport elements (i.e. orientation-specific laboratory product transport element). An orientation-specific laboratory product transport element has a dedicated front portion and a back portion. The front portion of the orientation-specific laboratory product transport element stays aligned with the moving direction of the transport element during transport by having, for example, the structural features of the transport element to interface with structural features of the track upon which the transport element travels. In conventional systems, such as in a stop flipper system, an orientation-specific transport element may not be able to conduct a complete half-turn when the transport element is being transferred from a first lane moving into a first direction onto a second lane moving into an opposite direction. Thus, when the front portion of the orientation-specific laboratory product transport element is no longer aligned with the moving direction of the transport element, a jam on the respective lane may result.
The task of embodiments of the invention is to provide a laboratory transport system and methods for its operation which permits simple and reliable operation, reduce the amount of concussion inflicted to sensitive samples, and entail lower design demands. Embodiments of the invention address the foregoing and other problems, individually and collectively.